Having had the Sony Alpha A65 in our hands for a couple of days now, we are slowly getting to grips with what this 24-megapixel APS-C Exmor sensor SLT shooter is capable of. One of the first things we noticed, during our initial hands-on with the A65, was the level of noise in the images at ISO 800 and higher, but also the high level of in-camera noise reduction applied to JPEGs. I have to confess that using the Fujifilm X100 for the past few months has certainly spoiled me in terms of low-light high ISO performance and out of the camera JPEGs; but that’s another story.

A higher level of noise is expected at the camera’s full 6,000×4,000 output resolution, as is usually the case with packing more pixels in the same sensor area. A lot of this noise will become non-visible as you scale down images for print or screen uses. Starting with a higher level of noise at a higher resolution is not all that bad. However, because of this — the larger images and noise levels — we’ve found that the images from the camera benefit from some serious post processing. Note, our findings with the A65, will also apply to the A77.continue reading

Our initial tests showed that, by holding the HTC Sensation with both hands, Wi-Fi signal drops or can even be lost completely. Although holding it with both hands, as demonstrated, is very normal, our tests do not fully show the extend of the ‘death grip’ issue for HTC Sensation.

So we thought of doing another test, this time by simply touching the top side of the HTC Sensation, to show how easily Wi-Fi reception drops without even gripping the phone.continue reading

We’ve been reviewing the new HTC Sensation smartphone and spending quite some time with it over the last few weeks, and although it’s a fantastic device, we’ve run across a rather frustrating hardware issue.

While holding the phone in a specific, though common manner, Wi-Fi signal strength drops or can be lost completely. Said ‘death grip’ happens when you touch or cover the top side of the phone (close to the 8MP camera); i.e. where the Wi-Fi antenna is located.continue reading